Opinion 
Looking at a brand new horizon
By Rebeka Silva
All endings are beginnings; we just don’t know it at the time. So I will say my goodbyes at the beginning.
I can finally wave away the countless classes, tests, the library, the newsroom, the cafeteria and the stress. But I cannot wave away everything I have learned, and I am not talking about the pythagorean theorem.
After two years at Miami Dade College I learned many things. I learned to be friends with people I never talked to, and to cut ties with those I’ve known for years. I learned to appreciate Cuban coffee. I learned that I need to eat lunch before 2 p.m. I learned to juggle tests, newspaper deadlines, botany presentations and dinner with friends. I learned that a narrative lede has its place too.
I learned that a catastrophe could make me feel insignificant. I learned that choosing your battles is the wise thing to do, and I learned I wasn’t that wise. I didn’t know half as much as I came into MDC thinking I knew.
The point I am trying to make is that this is just the beginning, and if the knowledge I seem to have gained seems insignificant, it’s not. These beginnings lead to my future, as it will for many of my fellow graduated peers, and the sophomore and freshman to come.
To the freshman and sophomores I say: do not conform. Your life will not be over if you receive a B grade in a class or if you decide that the class your advisor put you in isn’t what is best for you. Speak up and tell advisors if you don’t want a particular class.
Learn, as I did, to choose what is best for you by what you love to do, not what others say you will love to do.
Learn to speak out against unfairness and favoritism; most importantly learn to ask why.
Learn to not be ashamed of being different. And if you get a B or C, do not tear yourself to pieces, because it could have been worse, you could have failed.
But in the end, it always comes back to the beginning.
"Every new beginning comes from some other beginning’s end, " — Seneca, a Roman philosopher, in the mid-1st century AD.